Pens, pencils, memo pads, papers, documents and envelopes, clips, scissors, business cards and many other office accessories are a "must" in a business office environment, but usually clutter up even the tidiest office desks. Placing such accessories in a drawer may allow one to present a neat desktop, but has certain drawbacks, including a loss of efficiency of the office worker who must waste time opening and searching through drawers when, e,g., a simple paper clip is needed. From a viewpoint of promoting office efficiency, such accessories should be within easy reach, but simply placing them on a desktop might not be very aesthetical or tidy.
Attempts have been made to design individual containers for specific desktop items, enabling the office worker to choose the items needed, but the presence of such various forms of office accessory holders on the same desk at the same time contributes to clutter, which is undesirable both from a visual perspective as well as from that of working efficiency. Thus, more compact solutions have been proposed, such as single compartmented containers (as illustrated in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,475,022), where a number of specific items are combined within one type of structural container. Such containers may improve desk organization in general, but have the major disadvantage of imposing a specific combination of office items on the office worker.
Another attempt at solving this problem is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,700 which describes a holder that forms a trackway for a plurality of individual modules positionable therein, and slideable along its length (therefore in one direction only). This holder track is provided in standard fixed length, thus corresponding to a fixed number of modules. Further, this patent requires a number of dividers between the modules, as well as elaborate attachment means, such as brackets, clips, etc,, for holding the accessories along the length of the holder track. Thus, besides the very principle of a linear track, where modules are placed one next to the other, such a configuration presents the disadvantage of being unaesthetical in addition to being of limited practicality and efficiency. Thus, it is easily seen that the modular office accessory depicted in this patent is of somewhat limited practical utility, offers very limited flexibility and is complicated to manufacture and produce.
Organization of desk supplies is an area where due to the drawbacks inherent in previous attempts at creating an organized, efficient and aesthetically pleasing working environment, there is much room for innovation and improvement from both visual and practical points of view.